Just like a race horse (open)

[jillaroo]

Hector nickered and stamped a foot impatiently. Julianne soothed the horse with a pat, and she paused to rub the soft star on his forehead. He bobbed his head and whuffled in her hair, and Julianne couldn’t help but laugh. She ran her hand over the horse’s glossy neck and down towards his shoulder. He was almost bursting out his skin, and Julianne couldn’t wait until next show season.

It was still dark outside when Julianne led Hector out of the barn and up past the two empty arenas. She’d fed the horses their breakfast and done a morning check before leaving for a quick trail ride. This was the only time she got to herself besides weekends, and she was surprised at how much she had missed Hector while he’d been back in Virginia. Julianne smiled to herself as she walked. This was exactly how she’d always imagined things would be when she had been back in elementary school, and the teachers asked what she wanted to do when she was older.

Hector’s ears flicked back towards his rider, and Julianne kicked him forwards into a trot. The crisp morning air brought colour to her cheeks, and her blue eyes twinkled mischievously. She had been dying to ride again after almost a week of not having a horse. Hector tossed his head, wanting to go faster, and with a loud whoop of joy, Julianne gave the horse his head. The two raced down the dirt path, and she crouched over the horse’s withers like a jockey. The trees flashed past them so fast that they were only a blur, and the wind brought tears to her eyes.

[sepia]

Lee was getting a customarily early start and, as usual, was starting with a ride. The nice thing about this job was the flexibility - yes, he had tasks to do, ranging from exercising animals to painting sections of the barn that were beginning to look shabby, but he could usually choose to do them in whichever order he choose. And, thus, his preference for early morning rides before it got too hot. Today he was starting with Wishful Thinking, the excitable Gelderlander, and was debating taking him out down to the cross country horse.

Giving the large bay gelding a quick, but thorough brush, Lee tacked him up, opting for the standard GP tack that all the Academy horses had. Leading the horse out of the Red Willow Barn, he did an instinctive check of horses, but they all seemed to be happily tucking into their breakfast. Nodding a greeting to another one of the barn hands who was just entering, Lee led Wishful to the mounting block, swinging aboard in an economical movement.

The horse jingled his bit in his mouth, eager to get going, and after a quick girth check, Lee obliged by asking for a walk. He strode off, stride customarily large even after a night in his box. Heading for the cross country courses, it wasn't long before he gave the gelding the cues for trot, and they bounded forward, Wishful's head high as he eyed the jumps. Lee firmly passed them by, for now. "We'll maybe have a jump later, boy, but we need to warm up first."

Keeping him in a springy trot, Lee began to ask for some school movements, and soon they were describing circles and serpentines as they made their way across Blue Ridge's glorious grounds. Really, at times like this, with early morning sunlight pouring down like liquid amber, the air cool and clean, he had to think that life didn't get much better than this.

A faint whoop caught his attention, and not long after, a horse burst from amongst the trees and thundered towards them. Wishful snorted, dancing a little at the disturbance, and Lee sat deeply, suspecting that the rather unpredictable horse might take this opportunity to work himself up. Calm as anything one minute, and twitchy the next, he'd learnt the first time he rode the large horse that he was not one you wanted to be distracted on. Flaring his nostrils, Wishful let out a loud neigh, not stopping his dancing on the spot.

[jillaroo]

Julianne pulled the horse back down to a walk. Hector snorted with pleasure, and his ears were pricked forwards as the trail led into the woods. Julianne laughed and patted his neck. She had been enjoying their ride so much she hadn’t paid much attention to where they were going. The tree branches shook in the wind, and Hector danced playfully sideways.

The trail curved around an old oak tree, opening up onto a field that was the perfect spot for a gallop. Hector bobbed his head and snorted, as if agreeing with her decision. “Three...two...one...” she counted under her breath, and the horse coiled ready like a spring beneath her. Julianne began to smile. In her mind she saw them galloping around the show ring, taking one jump after another in easy succession, everyone cheering as they went clear.

She snapped back to reality at the sight of big bay horse she didn’t recognise. Her brows pulled into a frown, and when Hector skittered forwards, she was taken by surprise. “Whoa Hector,” she cried, reminding the horse just who was boss. Julianne kept a firm hold on the reins with one hand, while she waved with the other. “Nice day for a ride!” she called out, trying to be friendly.

[sepia]

"Definitely," Lee called back, as Wishful contemplated whether this new arrival was something he needed to get more excited about. Not giving the horse a chance to think too much about this, he asked the gelding for a turn on the forehand, to give him something to keep his mind occupied. Making him think about anything other than working himself up was usually the way to keep on top of Wishful's mood changes. He balked, initially, but Lee strengthened his aid and, after pausing long enough to make sure Lee knew that he did this under protest, he moved around, neatly enough.

"Glorious weather," he agreed, as the horse and rider grew nearer, following her - for he could see the rider well enough to judge sex, now - example of being nice and friendly. "Be hot later, though." At the moment, despite that knowledge, it was beautifully cool, and one could almost forget the fact that the middle of the day was going to be terribly hot, with the sun that was so pleasant now being rather more unpleasant.

He didn't say anything further, not sure if he was supposed to be starting a conversation, or letting the woman ride on past. Oh, the social morays of life, how difficult they could be.

[jillaroo]

Julianne laughed. “It’s nice not feeling like a human popsicle for a change. I never thought I’d be sick of summer,” she replied. Hector pranced sideways and then suddenly ducked his head and crow-hopped. “Hector!” Julianne exclaimed, making the horse halt. “Your manners are terrible this morning.” Holding the reins in one hand, she stroked Hector’s neck. The horse’s ears flicked back towards her, and he snorted at her good-natured scolding.

Julianne breathed in the warm morning air. She found herself thinking about her parents back in Virginia, and she wondered if they were missing her. They’d never understood her fascination with horses and riding. They thought it was just something she’d grow out of, but Julianne had always known that she wanted to spend the rest of her life working with horses. “As if anything could beat this, hey boy,” she said contentedly, and her mind wandered. Though winning a gold medal at the Olympics might come pretty close, she thought.

[sepia]

"His aren't much better," Lee added, with a dip of his head indicating the gelding he was riding, who, now that Lee had stopped asking for a turn on the forehand, was beginning to dance on the spot again. "I should probably keep moving before Wishful here decides that we're going to move off whether I like it or not." He was about to ride off with nothing more - except possible something along the lines of 'Have a good ride' - when he abruptly realised that the woman atop Hector was one of his fellow barnhands. He mentally excused his lag-time in recognising her by putting it down to the fact that he'd only ever seen her on the ground, before - and not particularly closely, either - and people looked rather different when on horseback.

That fact changed his mind. Perhaps not the most sociable person in the world, he'd realised several years before that, sometimes, casual social relationships had to be cultivated, especially with people you worked with - though at the time of his realisation, it had been people he went to school with, the principle still applied. And coming to Blue Ridge had forced him to move, a little, out of his nice, safe, reclusive shell, which was probably a good thing. And, so, he decided he should really be introducing himself.

"I don't think we've ever really met before," he said, gently nudging Wishful into a few steps of reinback. "I'm Lee - I also work in the barn, so, uh, I should really probably have introduced myself earlier." He came to a verbal halt, not quite sure what to say next, and instead offered the woman a smile. That was always a safe bet, right?

[jillaroo]

Julianne winced. She had been so busy figuring everything out, she hadn’t even had time to get to know anybody. “Oh my gosh, I totally didn’t realise,” she said, and clapped a hand to her mouth. There was an awkward silence, and then Julianne started to laugh. “I’m so sorry. I’m terrible with faces. Horses I can recognise no problem, but people, forget it!” she admitted sheepishly.

The bay horse started fidgeting, and Hector threw his head in the air, showing signs of wanting to go on too. Julianne held tightly onto the reins, giving him a little kick and circling him so that he faced away from the other horse. She turned around, brushing back a loose strand of hair that had slipped from under her helmet. “It’s so busy here,” she announced with a sigh. “I thought after my first day I should just drag a sleeping bag into the barn, saves me having to set my alarm.”

[sepia]

Slightly uncertain of how to react to what he considered to be slightly excessive apologising - it had taken him almost five minutes to realise that she wasn't a complete stranger, after all - he merely shrugged and shook his head in what he hoped was a 'oh-don't-worry-about-it' sort of fashion, adding, a little belatedly given the second slightly awkward silence of the day. "I find horses much easier, too - they change less." There. That was the polite thing to do, was it not? He wondered if she'd noticed that she hadn't actually introduced herself yet, and gave a mental shrug: if he didn't find her name out this conversation, he was sure to be able to do so later.

Seeing how fidgety her horse was getting, and feeling the impatient shifting of Wishful beneath his own seat, Lee made an executive decision and, asking, "Shall we walk? I think these two are bored with standing around," released his gelding forward into a walk, expecting his new companion to follow. "And I know what you mean," he continued, as Wishful settled down into a decent walk, calmer now he was moving. "Something is always happening... and a surprising number of the barnhands move on pretty fast, which doesn't help matters." He shrugged, tone turning amused. "Apparently working as a stable hand isn't the most glamorous occupation around, and people are frequently moving on to bigger and better things."

Which, admittedly, he'd be doing at some point, but he was going to give Blue Ridge a decent amount of his time. It only seemed fair, after all and it wasn't like he was anywhere near being able to branch off into some solo horse training business. Not yet, anyway. Some day... but for now, he'd be a barnhand.

[jillaroo]

Julianne kicked Hector forwards into a trot until they pulled up level with the other two. He began to walk even before she’d signaled it, and Julianne loosened the reins and gave him a pat. Sometimes, she thought horses were too smart for their own good!

“Yeah, I decided to take a break from competing last year,” she said matter-of-factly. “It’s still my dream to be shortlisted for the Olympic team someday, but one of my sponsors dropped out recently and someone has to pay the bills.” Julianne shrugged. “Still, it could be worse. I couldn’t imagine being stuck in an office working nine to five.”

They passed a large bank, and Julianne looked over her shoulder, swallowing hard when she imagined jumping something like that. Suddenly, Hector pinned his ears, and went a little faster. Julianne shortened her reins, and shifted her weight so she sat deeper in the saddle. The horse balked, and she gave his rump a tap with the crop. Hector bucked, and Julianne nearly lost her balance. She shoved her foot back in the stirrup, and tugged hard on the inside rein, turning the horse in a tight circle until he stopped.

[sepia]

Ah, so he was looking at a potential Olympic rider, was he? He filed that information away in his customarily organised - and possibly slightly obsessive - fashion, as he did with anything that he was told. Gifted with a very good memory, and a firm believer in the old idiom that 'knowledge is power', Lee tended to retain even the most trivial bits of information, maintaining that you never knew when they might come in handy. He also tended to gather information on people almost obsessively, the distance he liked to retain from most of humanity allowing him to do so without any qualms.

"You dream big," he commented, tone non-judgmental but curious, "But yes, bills do have to paid. I'm in similar circumstances," he allowed himself to say, feeling that this was probably the time to give information as well as receive, "Biding my time here until I have the freedom to set myself up as a trainer."

Reacting instinctively to Hector's sudden movements, Lee turned Wishful away into a small half-circle, not wanting the easily set-off gelding to get the wrong idea, and then sent him on into shoulder-in as Hector continued to mess around, giving him something to occupy his attention. And occupy his attention it did, as not being a pure dressage horse meant that Wishful had to think about the maneuver, and his only reaction to Hector's exuberant buck was an upwards fling of his head, soon countered by Lee pushing him just a little bit harder for the requested dressage figure.

"He certainly seems to have enough energy to go to the Olympics," he said, after a while when Hector seemed to be settled, not wanting to attract his fellow stablehand's attention when she was still dealing with a recalcitrant horse. "Presence of mind, on the other hand, might be slightly harder to maintain." His tone was ambiguous, though the half-smile he kept on his face probably belied whatever sting might have been felt in those words.

[jillaroo]

Julianne laughed. “You should have seen the comments we used to get when I dabbled in dressage. In the end some poor judge just lost patience with me and the only thing he wrote was ‘is he actually broken?’ I think by that time, I was starting to doubt it myself!”

Hector still looked decidedly mulish. He pinned his ears, and pulled away when Julianne went to shorten the reins. She slid her hand down his long, glossy neck, and the horse let out a snort. Sometimes, Julianne felt like she was sitting on a stick of dynamite that would explode at any second. While at times it could be exhilarating, mostly it was just exhausting.

She gripped tight with her legs, and when nothing happened, she let her breath out in a whoosh. Hector stood calmly waiting for her next signal, and she only had to flip the crop up to where he could see it to get him moving. The horse broke into a smooth trot, and Julianne twisted around in the saddle. “Come on then!” she shouted over her shoulder to Lee. “Let’s have some fun!”

[sepia]

"I can imagine," Lee agreed, eying all the coiled up energy contained within the gelding. A good trait if she was planning on taking him at least some of the way to the Olympics, though difficult to deal with at the same time. Typical ex-racehorse Throughbred, really. They never really, he'd decided from the few he'd worked with, lost that buzz they had which was, well, both good and bad. Drawn out of his musings as Julianna apparently decided that walking was boring, he raised his eyebrows at her retreating back.

Wishful was well-mannered enough to not shoot forward as Hector trotted away from him, but as soon as Lee gently tightened his leg, he was leaping forwards into an energetic trot, kicking up his heels for a few strides as he surged on. Hector wasn't the only horse around with stores of energy within him. "That sounds like a challenge," he called after Jill, smoothly putting his leg on a little stronger but maintaining his rein contact so that Wishful lengthened his stride without breaking into a canter, catching up with Hector even as they traveled at the same pace.

The gelding's long legs ate up the ground as they drew level with the shorter horse and rider, Lee flashing his fellow rider an uncustomary unrestrained grin - there was just something about riding out across this green grass that did a great deal to soften his natural reserve, and added to his resolution of attempting to get to know more people, well, he was being positively wild - for him, anyway, his customary polite, if distant, friendliness augmented by some real feeling. He didn't say anything, though, letting her call the shots in this particular instance, and content with following her lead.